Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote:
> > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair
> > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish
> > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems.
>
> > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up -
> > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how
> > Dakotan came to be so different.  Why does aN alternate with e?
>
> Just analogy?  yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'?

I thought there were other cases, though yatkaN is, of course, the
canonical example of AN.

---

I'm interested that the e-alternants are being put forward as citation
forms by everyone.  I think I've been corrected from e-variants to
a-variants even for inflected forms at SACC, by Dakota speakers, though I
couldn't say who it was who did it.  So I don't think it's entirely a
linguistic concoction.  However, I am not a Dakotanist - though I
sometimes play one on the Net - and this should definitely be
investigated.

JEK